


The Difference Teachers Make

by Cantatrice18



Category: Matilda (1996), Matilda - Roald Dahl
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Common Core, Depressing, Gen, Gifted and Talented, No Child Left Behind, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-04-04 08:20:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4130878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cantatrice18/pseuds/Cantatrice18
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matilda arrives at school on her first day to find it nothing like what she'd imagined.</p><p>AU, if Ms. Honey had never existed. Any resemblance to the American educational system is purely coincidental.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Difference Teachers Make

When Matilda Wormwood entered Crunchem Hall for the first time, she felt awe and excitement. She followed the other pupils of her age to class, wondering what new knowledge she would uncover that day. Weeks in the library had shown her worlds unknown to the common man, and she felt thrilled and honored to be allowed to continue her studies at school. She was sure that by the end of the day she would be a changed girl.

By the time the lunchbell rang, Matilda was indeed a changed girl. Her eyes no longer shone with anticipation. Rather, they flashed with anger and frustration. Her teacher, Mrs. Vole, had flatly informed her that, despite knowing full well how to read and write, she would be given beginners work along with the rest of the class. The same held true in mathematics. While the other children stumbled through their two-times tables, Matilda could quickly and cleanly recite her multiplication tables with numbers reaching into the thousands. Yet Mrs. Vole had insisted that she work on the two-times table with the others, since it was clearly impossible for someone as young as Matilda to have mastered the basics. Feeling the resentful eyes of her peers upon her as she ate her packed lunch in the corner of the lunchroom, Matilda resolved that she would prove to Mrs. Vole and all the adults that she was no ordinary child.

For months, Matilda did her best on every assignment, going above and beyond what any teacher could expect and writing reams on each bit of homework. How surprised she was, then, when her report card came back for her first semester and had her marks as only just above average. The report stated that she “had difficulty understanding the prompts given on each assignment” and that “her mathematical skills have no real use or merit, since she cannot show how she has produced an answer.” 

Matilda’s rage grew and grew, but so too did her sense of bewilderment and loss. Alone among her peers, she asked herself whether the calculations her mind so readily supplied could be wrong. She began to answer only the barest amount for each assignment, keeping all her ideas to herself, and her grades by the end of the year had risen to top marks.

Any hope she’d held out for the next year’s class was crushed the moment she stepped through the classroom door. Mr. Andrews was no different than Mrs. Vole. He began class with review, a word Matilda soon began to dread. Review took over a month, and in that time Matilda’s enthusiasm for knowledge waned, crushed under the weight of repetition. She stopped going to the public library, only dropping in every few weeks. Reading did nothing, now, to alleviate the boredom. Knowing how much knowledge was out there only made it worse when she was forced to sit hour after hour, listening to Mr. Andrews drone “I before E, except after C” for the umpteenth time. 

After Mr. Andrews came Mrs. Carmine, and then Ms. Lester, and Mr. Unger. Each was the same as the last, their lessons blurring together into a monotony of grammar rules and sums. She began to have nightmares about school, and to look forward to weekends, when at least she could be alone with her thoughts. Her family never minded when she stayed out of their way, and so she would lie on her bed, staring up at the ceiling and wondering how minds such as Keats and Shakespeare, Galileo and Newton, could ever have existed.

When Matilda graduated school, she did so with no honors. Her family attended for the briefest period possible, then left her to make her way back home on the bus. She had declined the chance to apply for University; more school was simply out of the question. Her education was through. Perhaps, years ago, she might have searched in a newspaper or the library to find ideas of what to do with her life, to seek out something that struck her fancy as an intriguing career. The thought never occurred to her. A week after graduating, she found herself at a convenience store a few blocks from her parents’ house. The bell attached to the door tinkled as she walked in, and a balding man in his fifties looked up at her from the front counter. “Yes?”

“I saw the sign in your window. I’m looking for work.”


End file.
